Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West as Taylor and Burton torture each other during a reunion on stage. Photo: BBC

Helena Bonham Carter and Dominic West as Taylor and Burton torture each other during a reunion on stage. Photo: BBC

Image 4 of 6

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) tries to interest his child soldier son Carl (Chandler Riggs) in the more peaceful pastime of growing vegetables for the survivors. AMC

Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) tries to interest his child soldier son Carl (Chandler Riggs) in the more peaceful pastime of growing vegetables for the survivors. AMC

Image 5 of 6

Michonne (Danai Gurira) gains a horse in Season 4.AMC

Michonne (Danai Gurira) gains a horse in Season 4.AMC

Image 6 of 6

Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa Suzanne McBride), AMC

Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa Suzanne McBride), AMC

Zombies or Liz and Dick? Both promise peril, passion

1 / 6

Back to Gallery

SAN ANTONIO — The desperate struggle for survival is amped to a new, carnage-packed intensity on the fourth season of zombie drama “The Walking Dead.”

Splatter and gore not your thing? TV also delivers a quieter, but not necessarily less intense, story of passion and peril. “Burton and Taylor,” a new movie on BBC America (8 p.m. Wednesday), takes us into the ring with one of the most volatile couples in Hollywood history as they reunite for one last time on the New York stage.

If you always have loved Liz Taylor but were turned off royally by “Liz & Dick,” last year's television debacle that starred Lindsay Lohan, don't wash your hands of all movies about the violet-eyed legend just yet. Helena Bonham Carter (“The Wings of the Dove”) — someone I never would have chosen to play La Liz because, frankly, she doesn't look much like her — is a delicious surprise.

She delivers the goods on too many levels to count: voice, manner, not to mention makeup, hairstyle and a Tay-loresque wardrobe that more than satisfies our appetite for nostalgia. Even more important, Bonham Carter communicates a vulnerability and loneliness that lies within the bigger-than-life icon.

Most Popular

Dominic West (“The Hour”) looks even less like the real Richard Burton. However, his nuanced performance also is a triumph. West succeeds at summoning the tortured spirit of the aging Welshman as he confronts both his mortality and the woman who never lost the power to push his buttons in what turns out to be the year before his death.

It's 1983, the era of disco, garish clothing and “Flashdance.” It's also when Taylor and Burton joined forces for a stage production of Noel Coward's “Private Lives.” The former has just turned 50 and manages to seduce a reluctant Burton — 57, on the wagon and hurting from back injuries — to dance and drink with her at her birthday celebration. This is the movie's first indication of the hold Taylor still has over the man she married and divorced twice.

Although the actor remains somewhat captivated by her charms, he's also irritated by Taylor's tardiness and tipsiness during the play's run and maintains a certain distance, fighting her manipulative wiles as best he can. She, in turn, punishes him for resisting her. Sending a message that she's ill, she skips a performance. When much of the audience walks out, disappointed that they'll be seeing an understudy opposite Burton instead of Taylor, the message hits home: Despite his acting prowess, it's Liz they clamor for.

More Information

This is where West and Bonham Carter shine the brightest: in scenes that depict the mesmerizing, sometimes violent, tug-of-war the pair was famous for, not to mention the undeniable sexual chemistry that crackles between them.

“Burton and Taylor” has drawn some criticism for presenting too romantic a view of the tempestuous pair, but I found it not only an extraordinarily acted portrait of Liz and Dick, but a marvelously moving one.

Bring on the 'Dead'

Though the body count continues to mount in the latest round of “The Walking Dead” (8 p.m. Sunday on AMC), there are signs of progress at the prison compound where the growing group of survivors make their home.

Rick (Andrew Lincoln) is making more time for family, particularly his teen son Carl (Chandler Riggs), who's way too comfortable with killing for a boy his age. The two tend to a garden of vegetables and fatten pigs for future dinners.

When we met Michonne (Danai Gurira) last season, she was on foot and utilized two neutralized “walkers” as zombie repellant. Now she looks absolutely regal, solo and atop a horse, as she heads out daily in search of supplies — and, most likely, signs of The Governor, with whom she has unfinished business.

Carol (Melissa McBride) has set up a school for the younger Woodbury transplants. However, in a disturbing twist, she trades books for a set of knives to educate the kids about ways to defend themselves in a world gone so awry.

As a constant reminder of our heroes' most gruesome foes, hordes of zombies have taken to hanging on the prison fence, prompting the residents to engage in daily head gouging to keep them at bay.

Worse than this threat outside, however, is a new menace growing within that promises to get more and more deadly. In short, the fourth go-round of cable's most-watched scripted series is shaping up to be everything a “Dead” devotee could wish for.

Jeanne Jakle's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays in mySA, and she blogs at Jakle's Jacuzzi on mySA.com. Email her at jjakle@express-news.net.